Famous Monet paintings on show
Nine paintings by impressionist master Claude Monet that are rarely exhibited abroad are on show in the Bund. Zhang Kun reports.
One of the best-known artworks of all time, Claude Monet’s oil painting Impression Sunrise is on display at the Bund One Art Museum in downtown Shanghai until Jan 3, 2021.
Created in 1872, Impression Sunrise depicts the rapidly changing light and mist during sunrise at the port of Le Havre in France. The painting is one of the most treasured pieces of the Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris and is rarely exhibited abroad.
Named after the painting, the exhibition features 47 pieces of artwork, with nine original paintings by Monet, including two from the Charing Cross Bridge series, On the Beach at Trouville, Boats in the Harbor at Honfleur and Falaise et Porte d’Amont par Gros Temps.
Also on exhibition are several Japanese prints that Monet and other featured artists drew inspiration from, as well as paintings by such modern artists as Vicky Colombet and Gerard Fromanger.
These new works are in “resonance with the impressionists in the modern age”, says Marianne Mathieu, the executive director of the Marmottan Monet Museum Paris, explaining that the exhibition is aimed at presenting impressionism in a historical perspective and reflecting its impact on today’s artists.
Marmottan Monet Museum Paris is the largest collector of Monet’s works, most of which were donated by the artist’s son, Michel.
“By giving its name to impressionism in the late 19 th century, Impression Sunrise came to symbolize the aspirations of a small group of artists who, in the main, painted directly from the subject, in natural daylight,” Mathieu writes about the painting.
“Making plain-air one of its chief concerns, impressionism revolutionized the art world.”
Mathieu describes the exhibition as “remarkable” not only because people in Shanghai would get to see Impression Sunrise for the first time but also because the pandemic created great challenges in transporting the artwork.
Benoit Guidee, the consul general of France to Shanghai, says the Marmottan Monet Museum and the Chinese organizers of the exhibition had to do everything they could to make the exhibition happen.
According to Xie Dingwei, president of Tix-Media Co Ltd and founding director of Bund One Art Museum, Tix-Media and the Marmottan Monet Museum began to work together as early as 2014, when the former presented a collection of Marmottan’s paintings at an exhibition at the K11 art mall, marking the first large-scale showcase of Monet’s art on the Chinese mainland.
After working with established artists for years, Xie believed Shanghai needed more private exhibition spaces that could host showcases of museum-level artworks. This led to the establishment of Bund One Art Museum, a joint project between Tix-Media and Xinhua Distributions Group. Located at Jiushi Art Center on the Bund, or No 1 Zhongshan No 1 Road East, the museum was inaugurated on Oct 1, 2019. Its first exhibition featured the works of modern Chinese ink artist Qi Baishi.
Bund One Art Museum was initially supposed to host the exhibition of Monet and other impressionist masters in March 2020, but the event was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the epidemic came under control in China, Xie learned that the iconic painting, Impression Sunrise, was available for international exhibition for a short period of time — from mid-September to the end of the year.
Knowing that this opportunity was too good to be missed, Tix-Media joined hands with Xinhua Distribution Group to bring the painting to Shanghai.
The old building at No 1 on the Bund was built in 1916. Originally named the McBain Building, the seven-story structure was later known as the Asiatic Petroleum Co Building. The building was taken over by the East China Petroleum Co after 1949 and underwent a major restoration in 2009. Today, it is an important heritage site under State protection.